


Consequences

by AnaWolf



Category: Tokyo Mew Mew
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Animal Instincts, Consequences, Emotional Hurt, Family Angst, Gen, Half-Human, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt No Comfort, Mental Instability, Other, Pain, Realistic, Reality, Tragedy, no relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-07-24 20:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16182518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaWolf/pseuds/AnaWolf
Summary: It was months after the defeat of the aliens, but eventually the "Mew Project" showed its long-term consequences. Just like the war showed the scars it had left.





	1. Prologue

**Prologue**

He wasn't someone who would be taken by weakness easily, no matter the situation.

Having lost his parents early in life and gone through life balancing day-by-day necessities with a secret, delicate research, hiding his worries and what he knew behind a veil of normal behavior, his nerve endings had hardened along the years and developed a high resistance to external elements. And internal as well.

As such, there weren't many things that affected him and when this happened, his self control came forward to fight it. Among the war, this wasn't surprising: It was _needed._

It didn't mean he _couldn't_ be affected (the moon had witnessed several nights spent awake, his mind becoming a Hell made by himself and for himself), however at least it didn't use to reach the point when there was need of a _conscious_ effort to keep appearances and not allow other people to notice his muscles pulled apart under his skin as marionette's strings, about to rip apart and let the doll fall. It wasn't in him to be like this…

And still, this was _not_ one of these occasions.

Once he parked near the building, he realized the shivers underneath his skin, his body waving between warm and cold. Taking a deep breath, he tried to force his organism under control as threads of memory were pulled forward his mind, not being of any help.

He had known, as soon as he had entered the car, he would end up feeling like this. _It was always like this._

Through the window, he looked to the building. .

It wouldn't be easy. It _never_ was.

Shirogane Ryou ran his fingers through his face and his hair, almost as if cleaning unseen stains as he took another deep breath, slower this time and eyes closing in that conscious effort. What he came to do wasn't just something he should, but someone that he _needed_ to do. And _wanted_ …

Leaving the car, he went up the white stairs to the entrance with head high and crossed the glass doors to the hall that received him with the milky cream floor, smooth and shiny along white walls… The light shades were helped by the huge windows that seemed to attract the sunlight and created an atmosphere as pleasant as they come. A pretty plant at the side of the reception desk and beige couches also helped it.

Not diverting his eyes to anything around, Ryou approached the desk behind which some people were either at the phone or checking data in the computers. The woman he approached was talking to a man a head taller than Ryou.

Both took notice of him.

The automatic smile of welcome from the woman became mechanic and made by iron strings and gears instead of muscles and life. The gesture that should be gentle turned into a grimace, unnatural even for a robot. Her green eyes reflected nothing. Meanwhile, the man adjusted his glasses, analyzing the blonde man without saying a word, face of a sphinx untouched by anything.

The silence between the three didn't last more than a second, yet there was enough communication in it.

"Good day" The woman greeted him politely enough, but yet not fully bothering to hide traits of her feelings. Not that it mattered, what slithered in her eyes was more than enough. "How are you today, Mr. Shirogane?"

"Very well, thank you, Miss Hiroyuki" He replied in the same way with a brief nod. The air around became uncomfortable and he didn't feel at all like exchanging amenities with any of them, preferring to go straight to the point. "I have scheduled a visit"

It was a thin warning.

The woman kept that expression, turning her attention to the computer, fingers flying over the keyboard. The man with glasses, on another hand, kept his hazel eyes in Ryou like daggers digging his flesh, never blinking and soon the wish that he would speak something found birth in Ryou. He nodded to him as well.

"Good day, Dr. Katsura"

One of the man's eyebrows lifted briefly. There was no need of dead smiles between _them._

"Mr. Shirogane" The doctor replied with a head gesture of his own, the only sign of acknowledgment, as brief as Ryou's had been and more alike a tick than a real greeting. His face could have been something cruelly carved in marble by someone who was studying facial muscles and knew nothing of expressions. Only his eyes played under the light and the minuscule blue dots among the hazel were alike cold scintilla.

"I didn't expect to see you" His voice was gentle like the worse of poisons.

"Well, like I said, I have _scheduled_ a visit, so I don't know why the surprise…" Ryou held his head high enough, wishing this would be over soon.

Dr. Katsura's eyes narrowed for a second.

"I think it would be too much to expect otherwise" Not moving, his eyes slithered to the woman who stood of her chair to give a small visitant pass, a white card scarred by blue and black letters. The younger man picked it with a thankfulness that was mere politeness.

Dr. Katsura crossed his arms on his chest, never stopping studying the blonde.

"Since I'm here, I suppose it would be better if I guide you"

"I know the way" The answer was hissed between teeth with a little more annoyance than he had intended to show. Every time he came here, the person in charge of "guiding" him seemed unable to restrain themselves and this didn't make things better, however it was even worse when coming down to Dr. Katsura.

Ryou didn't feel any pleasure in the doctor's company and the feeling was more than mutual.

Dr. Katsura raised his eyebrows, studying him down and up before leaning to him with the movement of a snake in front of prey.

"I believe I didn't ask for your _opinion"_ His whisper was no more than a breeze. "If you intend to carry on this lie you call "visit", especially with people under _my_ care, then you'll follow the rules, _understand?"_

There was no way to win.

Ryou _hated_ have to give in, had hated it all his life, yet he knew that if he refuse, he would end up being sent away. This he knew by personal experience and there was no other way to achieve what he wanted.

It was hard enough to be able to schedule a visit due to certain complications of late, despite the place having visitor hours, and it wouldn't do any good if he allowed his emotions to take over and ruin everything… The doctor, as well as other members of the staff, would love that Ryou himself offered a justification to not be let beyond the hall.

Opening his best smile, as false as Miss Hiroyuki's, he acquiesced.

"Very well, then… If you _insist"_

* * *

**Hello and welcome to " _Consequences"._ This is an idea that has been in my mind for quite a awhile. I won't go in details now, since this is just the prologue, but I hope you'll enjoy! Reviews and criticism are always welcome!**


	2. Chapter One – As Torn Flowers

" _There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery_." – Dante Alighieri

 

As a rule, Ryou had never had felt anything about hospitals. Some people don't like the smell, associated at once to antiseptics and medicine or then the environment itself, which invokes the idea of machines and needles as much as the sight of a green field does with the image of flowers. And there are some who can like a place like this, for the most varied reasons.

He was among the few who felt neither one thing nor the other, merely an indifference that, in his case, edged the absolute emptiness. When he was younger, he didn't like hospitals at all, but such emotions towards those places had been abandoned in his childhood along with the toys and picture books, burnt along with his house and his parents' corpses.

But he _hated_ the way until the so called " _Special Wing_ ".

He was well aware it was more a question of his emotional system affecting his perception of the surroundings, but even so…

Following a hallway, passing by rooms and rooms, he walked behind Dr. Katsura ignoring the sounds that came from beyond the doors, too low to be correctly identified, accumulating themselves over his head in a thin, messy web. Even if they were just mutterings or typing sounds, they joined his thoughts and blocked the air and the lights lit in the ceiling as white jewels.

"I'm _surprised_ you still come over here" The doctor said suddenly, attracting his attention as he stopped by an automatic door, placing a small card against a milky rectangle. A low "beep" of acknowledgment and acceptance, a circle of red light turning green and the door slid sideways, allowing their entrance.

Ryou held back a sigh. He knew it.

He just didn't know what was worse: The silence whose coldness invaded his body by force, aware that the doctor had things he wanted to say or having to actually _hear_ him, the intentions taking shape in the sound of his words invading his body as a disease that his organism couldn't fight against.

Which didn't mean putting up with it without retorting.

"I have the right to…"

"You don't have the right to _anything_ related to my patients" The doctor's voice was a cutting dagger and Dr. Katsura turned his face to Ryou just enough to cast him a look, a smile of soft lines holding all despise of who is forced to look upon a repugnant thing.

"However I do _hope_ this is the last time."

The hallways now were of another nature. The rooms were sparse, there weren't as many doors. They passed by a large window that showed an environment of a rubber-looking floor and shapes that Ryou didn't care to look enough to decipher what they actually were. A guard walked by them, throwing needles with his eyes when noticing Ryou.

"As long as I can…" He started, being interrupted by the doctor again, who didn't turn to him this time.

"The trials are still ongoing, but at the end of the month I'll have reasons enough to stop you from seeing whoever it is without the risk of you coming back with your lawyer." Dr. Katsura waited for an instant before going on, always with the soft voice that Ryou believed that the man used only for him. "Miss Momomiya's parents are deeply committed to the cause..."

They and others, also counting with the support of all doctors involved in the case. Not to mention other people.

Mouth going dry, Ryou's hands closed into fits. He didn't need that _cretin_ telling him any of this once he was personally involved in those trials. And in one of the occasions he had crossed paths with the Momomiya couple by chance, it had actually been in the hall of the hospital. The redheaded woman (who looked so much like her daughter that Ryou hadn't managed to look at her without feeling all his organs being twisted by invisible hands) seemed too pale and thin, tears escaping her brown eyes as blood from a wound. The man at her side had had to be held back by staff in his desire to fight Ryou, screaming curses and that he shouldn't ever be allowed even near the hospital again.

And mixed with the clear hate both had for him, Ryou had seen the pain in their eyes. The pain they felt for their daughter.

Unable of replying, he had just felt an emptiness that devoured everything inside. Oh, there were things that _could_ have been said, yes, but they had only occurred to him later. And even so, it wouldn't have made a difference to the couple and he knew it…

"You can say whatever you want" He let the words get free from his chest, thought they weren't more than a repetition of past scenes, a staging that both men's nature seemed to demand each time they met, an uncontrollable reaction. "But all humanity would have died if it wasn't for them."

The doctor stopped when they reached a door with a single name in a rectangle, a black line among white.

"Yes, that much is true. If it wasn't for _them._ However, on another hand, neither of them would be _here_ if it wasn't for _you._ So, go in, Ryou Shirogane…" Dr. Katsura hissed upon opening the door. "Go in and see what you have _really_ done."

**XxX**

The room was a pale tone of peach matching the white walls. At a corner, there was a bed and a soft chair (which was actually a large beanbag) and also a pretty writing desk with shelves in the place of one of the legs, accompanied by a chair. Photos were stuck in the wall above the desk, but Ryou didn't want to look at them.

Under some aspects, it _could_ be a normal room.

It was the other details that made all the difference.

The girl sitting cross-legged in the floor was looking through loose pages of a magazine, picking one and turning carefully. The noise at the door called her attention and upon seeing who it was, her back straightened and her head raised more.

"Oh, Shirogane!" The greeting had signals of excitement for the visit, her eyes lightening with a shine as she placed the pages together and left them at her side. "Ahh, it's so good to see you again!"

"Hi Ichigo…" The name tore his tongue as he approached when she seemed about to stand up, sitting down in front of the girl who just looked at him with a smile. A bitter thing inside him agitated, no matter how much he tried to quiet it down. Lately, this had been happening more frequently.

"It feels like so long! How are the others?" She asked, tilting her head to the side still with that smile which, like the shine in her eyes, was too alike the ones he had seen in the past and, at the same time, too different to allow him to fool himself.

Like the photos and everything else in that room, the vision was able to dry his blood.

"I think they should be fine, I…"

"That's good! That's good, right?" She clapped, hands involved in white mittens-styled gloves with a blue tie in the writs to keep them in place. The smile was replaced by childish curiosity as she leaned to him. "What about you?"

"Well…" Hesitation came to him. Anything that he had planned or wanted to say had hid so deep in his mind that Ryou no longer knew if he had ever thought about it or not. "I miss you all."

At least he wouldn't say lies.

The flesh of her face moved, forming again that smile that wasn't more than showing teeth whose shape was neither human nor feline, but something in between; white tombstones nestling rudely in the delicate gums.

"Don't be _silly._ You always visit!" Her voice still held the cheer Ryou recalled, that could be filled by indignation, especially when he used to tease her or demand overtime work at the Café. It was still possible to remember how she used to stand tiptoes due to the height difference between them when she protested against something he had said.

However now it was more like listening to a song out of cadence through a static that, while low, could still be noticed. A sound made of animal and human waves, desperate and happy, true and false.

In another occasion, a long time ago, Ryou could have replied her words with a sarcastic jest… Or she would have done it herself, maybe with some comment about him admitting missing them or that what he probably missed was being able to boss them around, especially her.

Those days were over.

The young man limited himself to nod. He noticed that the tip of one of her ears had a shredded look, as if pieces of the skin held needles underneath. A piece of flesh was missing from her other ear.

Ryou avoided looking at them.

"And you, how have _you_ been?"

The red-haired girl's head tilted to the side again, quick movement of a nervous tick.

"I'm fine, fine. I'm hoping to see the others soon, too." For a moment, Ichigo seemed thoughtful, even if the smile didn't fade. "Perhaps tomorrow or after. Dr. Kakizawa always allows it." The voice slowly lowered to a muttering before jumping to a high laugh, twisted in its sound. One of her hands ran over her face, shivering in nervous spasms. One of her ears moved, showing lines that were scarred flesh.

"She is a good person…" Ryou commented, not wanting to say how the woman was among the people who spoke against him in court and quite vehemently.

There was no reason to upset Ichigo with such topics.

There was no reason to upset her with anything.

The girl shook herself in giggles, moving her head back a little. The hair was a curtain falling at the height of her shoulders and, as washed and well-kept as it was, it was nothing but a dead thing of a dull red.

It was another paradox, just like the happiness in her voice or the light in her eyes. Her appearance was overall healthy and, personal feelings for the staff and doctors aside, Ryou knew she was being well treated, but…

"Yes! She is always so kind! I like her. She always manages to get me the books I ask and when I feel like watching a movie, too. When I leave for the gardens, she stays with me and we talk and talk!" The girl told him between that sound that was her giggle now and Ryou could only nod, trying to appreciate just how he could see her again.

The black snake that was the young girl's tail rested in the floor. It had always been full of energy and it was a rare sight to see it still. It used to wave even more when Ichigo laughed. Once, when she had been eating one of Keiichiro's special cakes, she had been happy enough so her ears and tail appeared, but since the Café was closed, she hadn't minded it at all. Seeing her tail whipping then, Ryou had commented about it with Keiichiro and the older man's reply had been that it made him think about kittens when they are playing with some yarn.

Now her tail had no movement and part of it was wrapped in bandages. Here and there the fur was messy and ruffled.

Like the cat's ears, that would never again regain the human shape.

"Good to hear…" What else he could say? He hated how each gesture and word now had to be reflected upon as he missed when he could speak with her freely, without worrying so much about the reactions it could cause.

"Hey, do you remember when Lettuce dropped that cake? Right when we were celebrating our victory against that Chimera, the first battle we had after she joined us?" Ichigo asked suddenly as if her mind had caught some wave of Ryou's memories and he needed to smile, confirming it slowly as his mind was taken by the remembrance. "She was mortified, but it was kinda funny!"

Yes, he could remember it well. Ichigo had wanted to commemorate (more the finding of another member of the group than the victory itself) and had laughed, a human and genuine laugh, as she hugged her new friend telling her that it was okay while Lettuce blushed and started a fit of apologies, eyes glued to the floor.

In those days, that seemed to belong to another life, Ichigo's eyes always had a light of their own, filled by whatever emotion she felt at the moment. There was nothing that connected them to the eyes that Ryou saw now, corneas taken by the pink iris, the pupils a black line and the light in them now something cold and dead, unable to bestow them the true emotion of before.

Almost as if something in her body recalled how it was before and tried to reproduce it by force.

There were times when Ryou thought that he was forgetting how Ichigo was back then, her voice, her human eyes (the memory of what seemed melted chocolate came more from factual knowledge than visual memory).

He regretted not having photos of the group. And he knew there was no use in asking her parents for one, either.

"Our luck that the Café was already closed" He commented, ignoring his insides twisting in the sack that was his skin. "Keiichiro had made another cake anyway, but she was still so embarrassed…"

Ichigo's eyes remained in him as if seeing through him and the girl carried on as if she hadn't heard the comment, waving one of her hands wrapped in the glove.

"Then she got better, but at first she was always too nervous while carrying the plates and all!" That laugh again, muscles of her face frozen in that smile in such way that Ryou almost saw the shape of the muscles against the skin, ready to tear it apart. "It was kinda funny. I told her how at first I got nervous too, nervous, afraid of dropping everything! And break aaaaall plates!"

"You had never worked on a Café before, it was natural" As he talked, Ryou tried again to avoid his memories to be tainted by those which had brought him here and also the reason why they had started to work at the Café in the first place.

"And Mint never wants to work, always around with her tea!"

"The afternoon tea…" It didn't matter even if _Ryou_ tried to talk to her, as he had once tried in private: The girl had insisted that she wasn't going to interrupt her daily ritual of so many years for a job that she didn't even consider real. "You reprimanded her at least twice a week for this."

Perhaps in the end, that had also been part of their "routine". Small behavior patterns that they held on to, as one would to a lucky charm. A weak attempt to bring more "normality" to their lives.

"The afternoon ritual!" She said a little louder, the strange teeth reflecting the light. One of them, at the side of the right lower canine, had one of the corners slightly higher giving it the impression of a cracked tooth. "I've always hated tea, Purin also says she doesn't knooow why Mint likes it!"

"She was the only one who did" The idea of the past days made his veins pulsate. Mint sitting by the usual table with her cup as Ichigo yelled at her to stand up and work like everyone else, Purin juggling, Lettuce shyly asking clients if they were ready to order… The blonde wasn't sure if he wanted to smile at this or not. A poison grew inside his veins each day, overcoming the caring and warmth from the memories, killing any good sensation.

"I've never seen Zakuro drink tea, I don't think she enjoys it either" The phrase started normally, but her voice started to dry, the smile faded, melting away…

"Ichigo…" He started, not knowing what to say, but suddenly her smile was back.

"I don't think Zakuro is having too much free time, no, not with the modeling and photos, but I bet Mint is really enjoying it, drinking tea whenever she can, right? _Right?"_ She insisted before Ryou had time even to hesitate, unaware of the coldness her words gave birth to in his bones.

"I… I guess so…" The answer was careful (God, _what else could he say?)_ and he suddenly wished he could reach out and caress her, touch her cheek, anything. "It's just how she is, isn't it?"

"Yes, of course, _always_. The afternoon tea! The afternoon tea!" Ichigo repeated, raising her voice and it was hard to tell if she intended to imitate her friend or not. "Never liked tea, my mom agrees. My dad likes some when he gets sick, but he will rather have coffee. Coffee, _irrrrk!_ Too bitter! _Bitter!"_

"And… And your parents?" The question came without a thought, he just hoped he could lead the conversation back to a path he felt firmness, no matter how unpleasant the subject was for him. At least a topic that was more… More of the _present_.

The girl tiled her head, curious by the nature of the question.

"Oh, whatever do you mean? They always come here too! Of course they do, why not? Or… Or you thought they wouldn't come? Or… They won't? They won't come here again? That's what you think?" Her whispers became faster, the tone vibrated with varied waves, too interconnected to allow Ryou to distinguish if it was nervousness, fear, anger, curiosity or any other thing. As if her own voice couldn't decide how it wanted to sound.

"No, nothing like this, I just wanted to know about your visits, that's all!" Ryou hurried up to say. The words didn't reach Ichigo, who carried on, her cadence alternating at each word, eyes not moving once.

"They always come! Always! They always… Come… Here… Here" For a second, she tilted her head again, letting it fall to the side in such way that her neck could have broke suddenly. There was uncertainty now of what she was talking about or perhaps where she was before Ichigo went back to vomit her words. "They _promised_ and they never break their promises! They always come. Everyday! They always say I'm still their daughter, that's why they always visit, everyday! Every… Day? Well, I… I think? Here, here… Masaya… Masaya was going to come, to see me too…"

Ryou felt the desert in his mouth and there was a moment in which his heart no longer existed.

" _Oh, God..."_

"Ichigo…" Leaning to her, he called her calmly, trying to get her attention, to somehow bring her back from among the fragments of her mind.

"Masaya, Masaya. He was going to come and see me" She lowered her head, the smile crawling away again. Ryou leaned closer, fearing that he was going to see tears in her eyes.

Ichigo raised her head.

The smile was an open cut bleeding memories and thoughts that the mind was unable to keep, broken shards that went everywhere and couldn't be placed in a fixated reality.

Her feline eyes pierced him, two pinkish fires lighted by the Hell that her interior had became, but Ichigo couldn't see anything anymore.

"What is here, again? And Masaya? He was going to visit me… Do you think he won't? Maybe he doesn't know the way. That must be it, right? Oh, do tell him when you see him, okay, Shirogane? He must want to come and he can't, that's must be it, so tell him… Or ask Akasaka… Akasaka, Akasaka" She repeated almost in a nursery rhyme way (perhaps no longer able to associate the name with the person) before her eyes shivered in the sockets. It was nearly impossible to make out the words running over each other in her mouth, voice jumping in volume and tone. "Oh, of course, maybe Masaya _doesn't want_ to come… He wouldn't tell me, of course, it would be _rude,_ but even if so we can't go out together, me and Masaya, I know, of course. No, no, not like this, not like this…"

Before Ryou's vocal chords could even start to make a word, the girl jumped, standing in a single movement that, at another time, would have been gracious. Her whispers were human words in the voice of a wildcat and she tried to hold her ears, stopped by the gloves.

"Ichigo, listen to me, okay?" He stood as well and attempted to hold her shoulders, but the creature walked away still emitting those weird sounds until, with a cry of frustration, she rubbed her gloves against the ears with all her strength. The man could hear the friction of skin and fur against the fabric.

"Not like this, not like this! Don't you _understand?_ I do, I _do!_ Of course Masaya wouldn't come to see me when I'm like this! Or my parents!" And she muttered the boy's name and then her parents, the only human sounds lost among others.

"Wait, Ichigo, please!"

Maybe she heard him, maybe she didn't. In a way or another, she wasn't able to _listen._

There was thump when her body hit the padded wall, against which she started to forcibly rub her ear, hands pressing the side of her head as she stomped the padded floor, using it as a support to force all her weight against the wall, scrubbing and scrubbing the skin.

" _I'M HUMAN! HUMAN!"_

"ICHIGO, _DON'T!"_ He cried out, trying to go to her. The girl agitated her hand in the hair to push him away as if trying to scratch, tail moving for the first time since he had entered the room and whipping the air. All the time, her muttering didn't cease. Ryou couldn't tell anymore if she even knew where she _truly_ was.

Among groans, he still could make out three words, repeating endlessly.

"Masaya… Daddy, mommy… Masaya…"

The girl who had been Ichigo Momomiya let out an incoherent scream, scrubbing her head with more force, hitting her hands against her body until she started to bite the gloves in the despair to get free.

"Wait, please!" He still tried to hold her, but she kicked him with an animal-like sound. Filled with nothing more than broken dreams and self loathing, the girl bit the fabric around her hands, then lifting her tail and leaning to bite the flesh, pulling and tearing.

Ryou couldn't look away.

Red dripped against the floor, petals of torn flowers. The fabric of the gloves gave in, rips freeing the hands that she used against each other, cat claws thick and twisted coming out of the withered fingers. The skin a web of scars.

Claws attacked the ears with ferocious movements, seeking to destroy them, to tear them apart.

When Ryou realized, men tried to hold her. Ichigo laughed and cried, meowed and screamed… Red drops and black full fell of her body as snowflakes, the color highlighted against the peach of the floor.

"Miss. Momomiya, no!"

The girl still tried to rip her own body, struggling as the men held her arms to stop her. Screams and laughs were intertwined by sobs… As if something in her was still lucid enough to know and understand, though it was too weak to help.

Dr. Katsura came in, a syringe in hands. The girl hissed and hunched her back, tail waving and sending fur and blood around. Her teeth and claws were stronger than those of normal cats and her wounds bled and bled…

With low words of someone trying to soothe a frightened animal or a small child, the doctor pressed the needle against the girl's arm, one of the men holding her chin so she wouldn't bite her own tongue. There were still hisses, still attempts at fighting…

Slowly, a mist took over her gaze. Bones lost strength and she became a doll in the hands of the men, who laid her carefully upon the bed bolted to the floor.

"Kuroha, you stay here. Yukimura, get Dr. Kakizawa" Dr. Katsura ordered, the firm voice not betraying the shivering that existed in his eyes. Both men nodded and the one of light hair went out of the room as his partner remained at the side of the girl's bed. Her eyes were closed, a low sound escaping her throat.

Dr. Katsura gazed to the photos… Frozen images of a past that wouldn't ever return.

Ryou, however, looked to the blood stains… Red petals that remind him of a future that was a torn flower.

* * *

**AnaWolf: So... Yeah, this isn't going to be exactly a happy story, nor will it have a happy ending. I won't go in details now, but you can guess the toll of the war got to the mews and... It left them pretty scarred, even if they did win and no one had to be sacrificed. It doesn't change all the months worrying, the memory of the fights, the mental pressure.**

**As I said, I don't want to go into details now, so on with the reviews. As always, they are what keep me happy and healthy. English isn't my first language, so if anyone notices a typo or grammar error, please tell me.**

**Thanks everyone!**


	3. Chapter Two – Wingless Bird

" _The most common form of despair is not being who you are_ " – Soren Kierkegaard.

**Chapter Two – Wingless Bird**

 

They left Ichigo lying down under supervision. There was nothing to be done and Dr. Kakizawa would follow the necessary procedures, though Ryou could only think about medication and rest as a course of action.

Following the hallway, all he could see was Ichigo, mutilating herself and his skull seemed to have caged the echoes of her screams, taking it along wherever he went.

"Thank you so much for not making her nervous!" The steps of Dr. Katsura had gained a furious harshness that made his white coat wave around as wings. Ryou felt his own anger towards the man trying to cut way among the misty lethargy that had taken over, intoxicating his senses, but Ryou ignored it this time.

His disagreement with the doctor came from since the first time they had met and had only grew with time, but he didn't feel like answering him now.

"Honestly, I'll be happy when it's all over!" The man turned his face to Ryou briefly, eyes of a burning hate. Ryou caught himself thinking about Ichigo's mother and how she and her husband had reacted once, when they had seen him at the hospital. "If it is up to me… This is the last time you'll ever come near any of them. Not that I'm the only one who thinks so" Dr. Katsura growled, his attention back on the hallway ahead, whose absence of doors created the sensation of a tunnel with no way out.

"I did what I could…" The words started to escape without his control, however Dr. Katsura didn't want to listen and chuckled. Or perhaps it would be more appropriated to say that his vocal chores merely produced a sound, making it a mockery of laugh.

"Oh, don't fool yourself. I know you did. We deal with the consequences of what you did here every day. Better saying…" He corrected himself, shoulders shivering once. "We _take care_ of the ones who must live with the consequences of what you did."

Ryou's vision was taken by drops of blood falling from Ichigo's body. His mind traced a way, going deeper and deeper in the past, since the day the intervention had became inevitable and the true identity of Earth's protectors had been revealed to Japan and the whole world.

More than those memories, there were the memories of the battles. Of meeting the girls after it, seeing the cuts and bruises they had to hide.

"I did what was necessary for humanity!" There was a new strength in his words, almost cutting his tongue while the mist inside him faded and anger found its way like a red sea. "I had no way of knowing this would happen, but I had no time! Humankind would have been exterminated!"

It wasn't that he wanted awards for this and nor did he deny his mistake in thinking that there would be a way for the animal genes to become recessive and that the girls would be able to go back to normal. This had been a mistake and he admitted it, however it didn't imply he would hear such things without retorting.

It was tiresome to hear the same things each time he came to visit, as it was tiresome to have to justify himself in front of the judge in charge of the process he was facing, with general accusations that could sent him to jail (one of them being something quite close of violation against Human Rights, ironically) being avoided only due to how his actions had helped to stop humanity's annihilation.

However, the biggest trial at the moment was moved by the families that demanded restrictive orders so he wouldn't ever go near any of those girls and punishment for what he had done.

Dr. Katsura turned a corner and stopped in front of another door. Ryou didn't need to look at the plaque to know the name of the room's resident and, before he could go in, the doctor's hand closed around his arm right above his elbow as claws desiring to rip the flesh open or to stop the blood flux.

Still not looking at him, Dr. Katsura whispered, metallic words slipping between his teeth.

"Necessary for humanity…" He muttered lowly, keeping his eyes focused on the wall ahead, voice the pure sound of loathing. "You impress me sometimes, with this arrogance of yours"

He turned to Ryou, who held his gaze aware the man wouldn't release him while he didn't say what he wanted. Ryou still had things he would like to say to him, but those could be postponed in comparison to his visits.

"If humanity survival was indeed what moved your project, then why you never thought about showing this research to military or the government? You had enough evidences of what was happening and yet you thought you _knew what you were doing"_

Words of reply immediately forced their way through his throat and Ryou forced himself to remain in silence, at least for now.

The muscles in Dr. Katsura's face moved mechanically to pull his lips up, showing his teeth. The suavity of his voice wasn't any better than the raw fury of before.

"I do wonder… If you truly think that, of all of Japan's inhabitants, let alone the world, only five had the organisms resistant enough to go through the genetic alteration"

He finally let go. Ryou scoffed with despise. He couldn't afford wasting the visiting hours exchanging barbs with this man. Yet, his whisper followed him inside the room.

"Shirogane… Did you really think it was alright to send five _children_ to a _war?"_

**XxX**

She was sitting in front of the window. It was how Ryou would usually find her in most of his visits and he had never known it she felt his approximant and placed herself like this, if it was coincidence or anything else.

In a way or another… It was hard to know what Mint Aizawa thought in the current days.

"Mint?" He called her, having to force the gentleness back to his voice and forbidding remains of his anger for Katsura to taint the sound. The room was illuminated by the sunlight coming from the window, the bed with light sheets on a corner near the wall and, like in Ichigo's room, there was small writing desk at the other side of the window and this also had photos.

One of the images, though, didn't have known faces and didn't portray moments of the past, which seemed to stare at him with unsaid accusations. It was a photo of a ballerina, delicately balanced in the tiptoes, hands making a gracious arch over her head, a photo taken in a precise moment of a step during a dance…

The room could have been normal, it certainly tried to imitate an environment found at any other place, however Ryou always felt as if he was going inside a tomb and even if fresh, he couldn't help the sensation of dust fragments piercing his lungs and even the colors faded to grey shades.

It wasn't so, he knew it and always told himself how it was his imagination.

The sensation still didn't leave.

The figure sitting by the window had no answer to give, nor any signal of acknowledgment that she had companionship.

This was also what always happened and like always, his organs became heavier in his body. Someone might say that to expect a different result would have been foolishness, but hopes like this are part of human nature as much as recalling ghosts of dreams.

Ryou approached her slowly and took a seat on her bed at the side of her wheelchair, which looked too big for the body of the girl caged on it. Trying to catch some emotion on her face, Ryou leaned a little in order to see her better. The blueish eyes remained towards the garden that could be seen beyond the glass and protection cover, not even a muscle hid under the skin moved.

And there was nothing in the flesh of that face that even came near an _expression._

Her hair fell over her shoulders and her hands rested over her lap. It would have been easy to mistake Mint for a doll if it wasn't for the fact that her eyes still blinked occasionally, but even this gesture at times didn't seem more real than how some dolls seem to blink if you move their heads. The hospital gown was like Ichigo's, light and thin, but longer and falling until her ankles.

The feet that rested in a brown surface of the chair didn't look at all like human feet, but they weren't completely bird feet either, being nothing more than twisted bones with a shape that couldn't be truly classified as one or other. Through the fabric around her legs, Ryou could have a vague idea of the deformity that had made it impossible to Mint to ever walk again, even if there were no bone fractures.

"How do you feel today?" He tried, looking back at her face, searching a reaction, even if it was something as brief as a star twinkling, just _anything. "_ I spoke with Ichigo before coming here…" He didn't know for sure why he was saying this and actually it didn't matter, he might as well have said nothing.

There were no words, not a change in her eyes or even a muttering with the snob tone of the rich girl he had been used to hear, especially when it was time for her tea and Ichigo complained about Mint's refusal of taking her waitress job seriously.

After a while, such scene had turned into a private joke among them and the occasional snob comments had lost their strength to reveal what they truly were: A sort of defense that had become natural in the girl due to growing up practically alone, especially after her own brother had started to ignore her.

Not for the first time, Ryou wondered if they had come to see her.

He had no way of knowing so, just like he had no way of knowing if Mint was going through another episode of catatonia of if she simply refused to acknowledge his presence.

Tentatively, he reached out and took her hand on his. It was like holding meat that still had bones.

"Please…" He whispered, searching desperately for some signal that indicated that Mint was still there, that he wasn't just speaking to a corpse cruelly modeled to look like her. "Mint… Can you hear me?"

He almost laughed of his own question. Hadn't he been thinking he never knew?

With slow movements, he turned her wheelchair to him. The brown hair with bluish lights alike the feathers of her wings waved with the move. She blinked once and that was it.

Ryou gazed at her eyes for a moment before raising one hand and holding her face with care, almost caressing the skin and recalling how this could be the very last time he would ever see her depending of the path things took in his next audience.

Facing those lost eyes, he still tried.

"Mint… Are you there?"

In another occasion perhaps she would have laughed of his question, had she been in a mental state that allowed answers, but her pale eyes just kept staring without seeing, without more life than fragments of a sanity so shattered as dreams that aren't fulfilled and are broken and forgotten.

Or perhaps just hidden in the depths of the mind, since their shards are too sharp for us to try getting rid of them.

He sighed, aware that seeking her like this wouldn't have results. He could stay here talking about past days as much as he could scream insults at her (not that he would ever do so) and the result would always be the silence. No use in asking about her current state to Dr. Katsura either, since the fucking son a bitch just gave evasive answers about the whole picture and never clearly stated if Mint was able to hear him or not when he came.

Muscles weakening, Ryou sat on the bed again, never stopping looking at her.

"I know you _can_ hear me somehow" She had to. "Maybe you can't talk to me, maybe you don't want to…" Dry air blocked his throat and he swallowed. "But I don't know if I'll be able to visit you all again… Maybe I'll, maybe I won't…"

Blabbering now. Another part of the ritual which his visits had turned to without him realizing it at first and with nothing he could do about it. While with Ichigo he never know what to say, what could shatter even more whatever remained of her in that body, Mint's silence had the opposite effect and tore words out of him as a hook coming down by force on his throat to pull his organs.

"I hope I will still be able to see you" He carried on. Her eyes blinked automatically. Her skin was pale, closer to the bones now and with little flesh between them. The marks under her eyes had the darkness almost of rotting meat, emphasizing how her eyes had lost their color, becoming close to the dull white of blindness.

For an insane moment, Ryou imagined that her body was indeed becoming blind due to the long moments she probably spent looking more to the interior of her mind than to the outside world. Not using her eyes as much as before, they were turning useless and slowly closed in the darkness.

He wasn't sure of what point her mind had devoured itself in a spiral of anthropophagi.

It was a nonsensical thought and without fundaments, but God, did she even sleep nowadays with that incapacity of existing that had taken over, spreading to her heart and mind and the rest of the body just like her feet had entered a process of deformation that couldn't be stopped or cured?

His hands sought hers again as if hoping that by offering a physical point of reference, he would be able to pull her back from wherever she was.

Another senseless thought, of course. Such ending belonged to fairy tales, in which tears can heal, the moon is a guide to the lost princess and fairies dance in clearings among leaves made of crystals and diamonds.

In such tales, bad experiences leave no rips in the minds, where the seeds of nightmares grow cruelly, roots made of memories that hold the sanity from which they take their nutrients day after day after day…

He didn't let go of her hands.

"If I can't see any of you again… I…" His voice failed him and he hated himself for this, for how weak he looked.

The dead eyes remained still.

The silence was needles in his defenses, defenses of years focused in a single objective and now, he felt empty himself, empty and lost. The room suffocated him and though the young man held her hands, he felt something going through his body with a will of its own to close his throat.

He let go of her and stood.

Carefully, he turned her chair back to the window. The next words fell among her hair.

"I'll miss you…"

There were more, more words he could pronounce, but nothing else to be truly said that it hadn't been a thousand of times before.

Before walking away, he looked one last time to her face, to her eyes.

All he found was emptiness.

Emptiness of soul and future, just like of all love and any hope.

* * *

**Ana:** Another day, another chapter. This was one of the hardest to write since Mint is unresponsive. But in the end, I hope it was okay! As always, reviews are really welcome (and hoped for!).


	4. Bubbles of Dreams

_"Depression isn't just being a bit sad. It's feeling nothing. It's not wanting to be alive anymore."_ J. K. Rowling

 

In spite of everything, he thought he would rather have stayed at Mint's room, in the company of the accusatory image of a ballerina and the deformed bones cruelly hidden under a thin skin. The silence there was bad, however… No. The silence wouldn't be bad if it was a _true_ silence and not the essence of absence. Absence of sound, of life and soul.

Even so, to go out and have to stand Dr. Katsura wasn't a seductive option either. Everything was going bad today and Ryou felt the well-known bitterness' roots grasping his insides as it grew, dry and rude to the touch even if it fed of him. It shouldn't be much different than having your blood ripped away from your veins by some dark creature.

It crawled up his throat, held his insides and created hooks in his brain to pull memories of long lost days toward his eyes, like a desire we know we won't ever be able to fulfill but, perhaps because of this, we aren't able to reject.

In his case, the desire that those days would go back to being his "present" rather than his "past".

Dr. Katsura welcomed him with a cold stare as he measured him up and down before turning his back at the boy, not needing to look back to know Ryou would follow him among the hallways. There was some satisfaction for Ryou in this: He didn't want the weight of those eyes on him.

He hated Katsura.

It wasn't for his words or behavior or the attitude he had every time Ryou came to the hospital. It wasn't even due to his standing during the trials.

He just _hated_ him.

Ryou recalled the things the doctor had told him until now, not only today but on every propitious occasion. He hadn't been the only one to spit accusations on his face or to try to cut him with words, of course. Many others had assumed the pain of the Mews' families as their own and protested against the whole idea of the Mew Project, conveniently forgetting of a detail that forced itself in the shape of words and made his way to Ryou's mouth before he realized he was speaking.

"The whole human race would have been exterminated if not for them."

The vocal chords of the man in front produced a muffled sound in reply, that Ryou didn't bother to fully identity. He kept his gaze on the man's back, the pale walls having nothing to seduce or hold his gaze. And something in him refused to look to the floor, even if the doctor wouldn't have noticed, let alone cared.

"None of us would be here if it wasn't for them and the powers they received. No one can say that five lives are worth more or less than of the whole humankind, but I did all that was within my reach" He didn't say, but he found hypocrisy in how people would condemn his actions when their behavior would probably have differed greatly during the time of the battles, should they be aware of everything and how close humans were of annihilation. It was easier to judge him now that it was all over.

If they had been aware of the situation, they wouldn't have hesitated more than he had to send those girls to then war.

" _Your_ reach meant nothing" The other growled.

The anger towards the doctor once again tried to find a path within and this repetition of tension-bitterness-anger-sorrow-tension attacked his nerves, pecking and pecking until the flesh under the skin became stretched and ready to rip apart. As much as it was worth it to see the girls, Ryou couldn't deny it was strenuous.

"You can say whatever you want about the events, Katsura" He carried on, coldness taking his tone over. "But I had no choice. Everyone would have died otherwise…"

The man didn't suffer him to continue.

" _Doctor_ Katsura, unlike you, I _do_ have a degree" He hissed and Ryou noticed the muscles of his shoulders had suddenly turned into smooth stone. "And _had no choice?"_ The man turned to him with a hard movement, teeth gritting against each other among which words slipped in a metallic sound.

Leaning to Ryou, he whispered.

"You're no different than a child who found out how to turn on his father's machine and, just for that, thinks you know how to make it work properly. They are _children,_ Ryou."

"Think I didn't know that? That I didn't spend nights awake, worried about all that could happen?" He replied in the very same tone. He wouldn't admit that this man spoke as if he knew how he had felt back then, how if just because Ryou hadn't been in the battlefield, the events hadn't affected him.

Dr. Katsura didn't even blink.

"The youngest of them was ten and the oldest, fifteen. No military training, no psychological preparation" The medic attacked, his voice never changing the soft tone. It was a mere fact, pure and simply. He turned again, his steps now increasing. Ryou could feel the words still forming, unable to bear listening to all that without retorting, even more when all this came from a man who knew nothing of him.

"There was no time to search for other people with compatible organisms. And _there was no way_ to prevent the long time effects of the DNA alteration, I used myself as the first subject to ensure it was safe…"

"I hope you don't _sincerely_ expect an ovation or think that this eases your actions, or I will doubt your so called great I.Q." The other mocked, stopping near a third door that, Ryou knew, would take him to a slightly bigger room than the previous ones. The two man stared at each other again, both settled in their arguments and opinions.

It wasn't a true question of attack and defense, accusation and denial, but a shock of visions and emotions that were no more than the sides of a single coin.

"You're not stupid, that I do know, so don't use arguments that you know to be useless."

Ryou was aware this was a way of Katsura to direct the path towards the differences of organisms and wasn't surprised with his next words.

"Medicine is tested several times, variables are analyzed, results are considered and even so, sometimes, a vaccine or pill can, after a time, reveal to have a negative effect that wasn't expected." He spoke now as if he was in a fucking classroom. Ryou would have preferred to enter the room and ignore him, but the doctor would just not let him until he was done, anyway. "What to say then of a science that directly affects the DNA of a living being, turning the body a receptacle to the genetic code of not one but two beings completely different?"

Ryou just broke the visual contact with Dr. Katsura to go into the room that he already knew as well as the others due to previous visits.

His legs, however, were weak.

**XxX**

In this room, he wasted no time looking at the furniture, but approached the white tiles that made a rectangle that took almost half of the room. Even with his shoes, he almost could feel their coldness. Crouching down, his eyes sought a figure in the crystalline water that waved with the gentleness of a sleeping creature's breathing, the light making reflections of pale lines in the walls.

A shadow passed in a corner.

"Lettuce?" He called in a whisper (nowadays, she didn't react well to loud noises and other elements), though there was no need of even say anything since she was probably already aware of his presence.

The shadow in question crossed the waters in the opposite direction. An unadvised person would certainly have imagined it was a dolphin or another animal, the mind not wanting to register how the shape didn't match the idea.

There was hesitation to the idea of calling her again and Ryou opted to wait a little longer, sitting down without worrying about keeping a safe distance, not when there were security cameras in every room.

And he also didn't care for how the last time he had met her while she swam and had gotten so close, he had had only a second to realize the sound of the water and then the piercing pain when her tail had came against his skull with enough strength to dull his thoughts as the waters hugged him ferociously. To this day, Ryou couldn't say what had led her to such behavior and perhaps Lettuce herself wouldn't be able to tell.

The memory drowned his mind for a moment, so he almost didn't see her coming near, the figure becoming a shape that was easier to indentify, colors coming to life. Another wave separated from the waters, made of thin greenish threads, floated around in a misty dream before making way when she crossed the surface.

In the first seconds, they merely stared at each other.

Like with the others, there was little here of the same shy and sweet girl he had known. But the similarities were enough to not let the mind fool itself and this made the sight almost unbearable.

Her skin had once been fair, frequently victim of blushes that only made the blue of her eyes more noticeable and they were jewels when taken over by any particular strong emotion or the moisture of tears she often held back. The hair, made of soft waves that captured light and when they had met, she had never realized there was nothing about her that was a waste or worthless, as those of her school had spent years burning into her mind until she believed it to be true and every grain of self-love was gone… Until she had met Ichigo and the others, who had fought hard against her self-depreciation (something Lettuce also fought to hide, never wanting to burden others with her emotions) until she could look at herself without her mind starting to list flaws that didn't exist.

But now…

Her skin was sick, with grey shadows that were more typical of a dolphin and looked too frail to hold the mass of flesh and organs. Ryou never knew for sure if this shadow in her skin was progressive state or if it just happened when she swam, like someone may get too red if under the sun… Whatever data about the state of Humanity Defenders was private and he knew he had no rights to demand details, no matter how much he wished to know what was going on with them.

No… He knew what had happened, what was hidden was merely the name and classification of some details.

" _Does it make a difference? A rose by any other name…"_ The thought came without control and he did nothing to stop it, wondering briefly if Lettuce was indeed _seeing_ him.

The eyes that were on him weren't quite the same that he recalled. They were still big and beautiful, but they were neither the natural blue of her human form nor the green they turned to when her body concentrated in level unreachable to humans to invoke and bring forward the genes of a finless porpoise. Now it remained between a color and the other.

She just stared at him.

He would have liked to say this was the only change and that the gaze was still the one of Lettuce, that innocence remained, but what a lie that would have been.

There is no innocence to be found in the eyes of those who have truly know war, eaten and drunk with it, having it following them to their beds and shared their dreams in a parody of holy matrimony. No innocence to be found in the mind that has been taken by a black plague that forces it to close in itself and cradles it with whispered lullabies.

"Lettuce" Once more he called the name of her flesh that no longer was the girl that had once loved him. And that he had been too much of a fool to see in time.

The eyes blinked.

"Ryou" She said in an imitation of his tone. It hurt when she spoke like this, like a being that had never made use of her vocal chords and was merely saying a word as in a test, without any emotional connection the sound could have had one day.

Even so, at least this time, the sound of her voice was human-like.

"How do you feel today?" Ryou felt as if he was speaking to Ichigo once again, forcing himself to repeat questions and clichés terms that were unpardonable in their uselessness. However, while with Ichigo you stood in a thin floor and any slip of tongue could press the fragments of whatever was left of her mind (sometimes, words were not even necessary), with Lettuce he felt there weren't fragments enough to be pressed.

Like when he saw the others, his mind turned to past days like nails go back to a wound they're not supposed to scratch, his brain seemingly unable to relate past and present and a part of him still searching desperately for a way of making sense of this reality.

Where had it all started to break? At which point what they had started to rot to give place to the days of now?

The girl moved back. Under the veil of waters, Ryou saw the shadow not of legs, but of a smooth grey tail. Lettuce said nothing more, just kept staring at him as if needing more stimuli to keep talking than a question that no longer had much of a sense to her.

"Well" It was the only reply, still the same tone. No smile, no comments, no questions. Her tail made a move, propelling her body to the edge, where she leaned to take impulse and get out in mechanical gestures not of someone used to do something but of a mere machine following the program and, upon sitting, she dragged herself back using her hands as support until the tail (longer and thinner nowadays, more fitting for a eel than a porpoise) was out of the water.

If before she could have invoked the images of a mermaid, now it was more alike a sea demon. The lack of humanity in her eyes did nothing to help.

Slowly, the skin gained a pale pink shade until a certain point and seemed to melt to form legs. The bones didn't hold a deformation such as Mint's, but under the skin one could guess there was something not quite right, though at least she could still walk normally enough.

Ryou forced himself to keep looking, even if the sight burned his corneas. When ready, Lettuce stood and took a seat on her bed, not seeming to mind or realize the sheets were getting soaked. She just remained there, seated.

At the side of her bed there was also the same model of a writing desk, however, unlike Ichigo's or Mint's, there were no books and the photos looked more like cut images made of dead skin that had been left there by chance. Even if well kept and clean, it gave off a vibe of worthless object that was placed there just to fill an empty space.

She no longer read. Ryou couldn't tell if her broken mind no longer found interest on it or if she had forgotten how to read and her brain couldn't learn again. In a way or another, there was nothing more there.

Lettuce didn't waste any glance to the photos either and they probably didn't held any meaning that she could process anymore. Her brow frowned slightly when Ryou didn't move, as if the girl was a little confused as to why he remained there or why he hadn't left. Or maybe it was nothing to do with his visit at all.

Ryou still tried something.

"And… How have they been treating you? Have your family come to see you?"

The eyes of dead doll blinked. There was no emotional association with the terms, not even when her family was mentioned. The fragments of her personality had been consumed and what remained was a corpse that lived merely because her organs had no reason to cease.

"Yes. I lack nothing" A second of silence. "My parents and brother came other day" It was if she was bored by a mathematical question. Ryou recalled how she used to shine when speaking of her parents, the pride in her voice when it turned to her brother, the happiness she found in making dolls or in a new exciting book…

Now, she could be talking of any banality that held no importance or interest.

Ryou knew the only reason why she knew who they were was because her memory was not damaged.

But it didn't matter anymore to her, just like in reality, she found no difference if she was in a room or basement, as long as she was not in pain. And that she had a pool. To stay too long without allowing her body to go through the peculiar change of legs to tail could led to complications that, if worsened, would soon mean the need of amputation.

Internally, Ryou cursed how he had no access to what was truly wrong in her, though the sensation was also devoured by her sterility. Whatever had eaten her mind, was always hungry for more, enough to have power to attack whoever came close…

Suddenly, he approached her and touched the mass of wet hair, uncaring with the drops sliding through his fingers, warm as blood that hadn't been forgotten. Lettuce had no reaction to this, just watching him and not knowing the gesture or the reason for it.

And probably not caring much either.

Not for the first time, Ryou's mind was assaulted by the image of the girl he had known, the shy Lettuce of sweet smiles, floating in eternal darkness of a night without moon or stars.

He once had read about a specimen of whale who sang in a too low frequency to be heard by others. As such, it remained in its territory, singing and trying to call for others for company, without ever being heard and doomed to loneliness.

It wasn't too different… She was fine, she had said. But the one who sat in that bed and spoke to him was not Lettuce. If there was anything of her in that body, it was locked away in her own mind, screaming in the silence and without chances to find her way back or to be found…

Or perhaps…

She actually no longer wanted to.

There is so much one can take of sorrow before deciding to find a refuge within, merely allowing the body to carry on as one is actually waiting and waiting for the blessed day when the heart will obey the wish of being set free from the cage of skin and flesh…

While Ryou watched, Lettuce lied down in her bed and stared to the roof. He thought she would close her eyes, but she didn't. Just kept looking and looking, already back to the nest she had made to herself in those depths of her mind.

He sincerely thought that perhaps he would have liked it more if she had hit him again.

At least there would have been something in this action.


	5. Lies of the Eyes and Lies of the Voices

_"I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here." -_ _Ellen Hopkins._

 

 

Ryou held a sigh upon leaving Lettuce, who remained still as a corpse and just as silent… This could be the last time he would see them all depending of the results of the trial and the worst was that he knew the chances of restriction orders were high (among others). So, it didn't matter how hard it was or how breathless he felt, he wanted to see them at least one more time.

Following Dr. Katsura through another hallway, they passed by a lady who carefully read papers in a board, turning them as if in search of a specific detail. She muttered a greeting to Katsura and made a point of ignoring Ryou completely, which didn't bother him at all. At this point, the scorn of a nurse wasn't something that could reach him.

Sadly, Katsura seemed settled to take this last visit to shot all the verbal arrows he had at Ryou, in a way the blonde wasn't surprised when the doctor carried on as though the moments spent with the girls weren't more than brief interruptions.

Recalling what he had said a while ago, Ryou muttered.

"I wonder if people would behave like this back then" Seeing Katsura didn't reply, but aware he had his attention, Ryou added. "It's easier to be scandalized with something necessary after the risks are over"

The silence of the medic lasted for a second and Ryou had a small surprise to realize he was taking his words into consideration, taking in how the doctor behaved regarding him.

"Of course it's always easier to justify _any_ act when we're under a threat. Survival instinct takes over. It isn't so hard to forget morals, as we would like to believe…" His words came slower this time and accompanied by a sigh. "It seems this is a point we can agreed on. There is just one crucial point…"

Which the cretin would tell him anyway. Still…

"And what would it be, I wonder?" His words dripped sarcasm, as what he truly wondered was why he even attempted to talk with this man. Perhaps because Dr. Katsura and Dr. Kakizawa were ones truly in charge of the attempts of treating the girls…

Not that there was hope of cure, they all knew it.

"That you never truly thought about what you were doing. I was there when the prosecutor showed your father's notes as evidence, did you forget?"

A growl was kept in the end of Ryou's throat, along with an answer. He couldn't say he had forget or that it had pleased him during the trial, with the prosecutor talking about his father's research as something degenerating and amoral when it had been used for the salvation of human race.

"My father…" He started between teeth, being interrupted by Katsura.

"Oh, don't be mistaken, it _was_ an ingenious research, an unimaginable advance on genetic engineering and all" There was no true admiration in his voice, he merely repeated a load of words. Truth that the revelation of the genetic process involved in the Mew Project had been cause of great discussion and debates outside of courts among doctors and scientists, but Ryou wasn't interested in this right now. "It just happens that you are not your father"

"I've never said that…"

"And that's why" The doctor ran his hand through his hair. His steps no longer had the same rhythm of before, they were slower and tired. His voice also weighted more and yet Dr. Katsura was unable of not saying anything, for whatever reasons. "You have no way of knowing _how_ your father would have realized this project. Your way was to force five girls into this, never even trying to talk to them or giving them a chance. You just went, modified their bodies and told them to go and fight"

Ann argument that had been used when there had been an attempt to prosecute him for crimes against human rights. The memory still twisted his nerves with something that could be irritation as well as shame.

_This had saved humankind._

"Be honest, boy…" Katsura's voice was suddenly raw somehow, flesh which skin had been removed by force and he turned to Ryou, eyes piercing him, needles in search of something. "Why didn't you ever think that there could be other people? Why didn't you ever think about showing all that to the government? The ones who had to face this war should have had rights to actual trainings and psychological support and you are aware of it."

Ryou's teeth pressed against each other to this. The door of the next room was right on the curve of the hallway. Just some steps away that felt longer due to that man and his words, while exhaustion found a nest in his body and mind, as well as him soul, going deeper and deeper.

"Was it because it was easier to manipulate people younger than you?" The tone had no mocking this time, Katsura was genuinely curious about his reasons for going on with the Project and with people who were so young and unprepared… If there was such thing as being "prepared" for a war.

"I would like to see what _you_ would have done in my place." Ryou sneered. "Do you have any idea of what is to know Earth is being invaded and there is nothing our weapons can do? I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes!" The last word would have been a yell if his throat had found strength in time for the necessary impulse. "But don't you dare say… Don't you dare to _insinuate…_ That I didn't care for them nor had no notion of my responsibilities regarding…"

A dry sound cut the air and the blonde needed a second to realize Dr. Katsura had laughed. A humorless sound that was too alike to how Lettuce's voice was now to anger to find a place of rebirth.

"Responsibilities? _Responsibilities_?" The word was repeated slowly, in experimentation of the pronunciation of a foreign term and the cold fire was alive again in the man's eyes and yet he made no movement to keep walking. "If you actually had notions of this, you would have know that a process such as this needed tests! More than merely using it on yourself! Nothing indicated the result would always be the same with different subjects and look at what happened! This all could have been prevented!"

The only thing that truly stopped Katsura from yelling was the same that stopped Ryou: The fact they were too close to the room and, if they did so, the person in there would be able to hear.

The man turned the corner and again stopped next to the door while picking the magnetic card in his pocket with a renewed violence in his actions and an effort to keep his voice controlled. He didn't need to go in the rooms to be as affected as Ryou.

"You needed more than just changing their genetics. _They_ needed more. They needed guarantees and ways to prevent _all of this._ Look at Aizawa Mint's legs! Look at Momomiya Ichigo, who can't even hide her ears or her tail anymore! Look what happened to their _minds._ And yet, you were settled in being the only one "responsible" for the whole project."

He stood at the side of the door just like before, for all effects more of a guard dog than a doctor.

"You are the only one to be held responsible for all of this. Not for "humanity's salvation", this is with _them_. And the true person behind the project, the one started the research, was your father. No matter what you say… In the end, you merely took it over and fulfilled it according to your wishes. The only thing you're responsible for is for what they became now… That's all."

**XxX**

The rustle of the door opening called the attention of its occupant, who was now in front of him exhibiting a large smile of small teeth and upon registering who it was, there was a cry.

"Ryou! Hello! Na no da!" Purin exclaimed with the ways of someone who had opened the door of her own home to a visitor. "You didn't tell me you would pass by! Come, come!"

She held his hand, hers stone carefully hidden in skin that was no longer as smooth as it should, fingers calloused by holding weapons and her tiny claws against his flesh (not hurting and with no intention of doing so either) as she conducted him to the middle of the room and took a seat in the white chair. Her feet still didn't touch the floor and swung along her body as if it was still too small to hold all the energy she had.

"I'm so happy you're here! I was wondering how things were going for you!"

"Just a little busy… Some things happening…" He tried to ignore how his nerves twisted to her childish smile, that didn't match the teeth or the glint in her eyes and tried to make a conversation with the same care of when he talked to Ichigo. "But it is of no matter. How are things for you, Purin-chan?"

A laugh that held a scream echoed from her.

"Nothing much!" She opened her arms in a gesture of indicating the space around. "Just taking care of things here! But I'm happy! I'm having lots of fun now that Chancha, Hanacha Lucha, Honcha and Heicha are in vacation from school!" And her hand firmed itself in air, fingers moving in a caress. It could have passed by as a child's play of having an imaginary friend or pet if her hand wasn't so firm, if the fingers didn't seem to be actually against someone's head…

If it wasn't for her eyes.

The man managed to, somehow, move his head in a nod. Purin's tilted to the side brusquely, making her look as if her neck had suddenly broken, the side of her face almost touching her shoulder as the eyes held on to that glint, which granted them the appearance of having something overflowing.

"Hanacha missed you too!"

"And… And I missed her, too…" He didn't dare to make any gesture to even pretend he saw her younger brothers and sister as he made no attempt to break her delusion that she was in her living room. Her mind had frozen to see things that way.

"And… And your dad?" Why did he always end up asking about their families? A part of his own mind gave the answer in a cruel whisper: Because there was no other subject that was safe enough. Speaking of the past they had shared was almost impossible and there was no way speaking of the present as the girls barely comprehended it themselves and any other subject related to the world beyond those walls ended up being too risk or too distant to have a meaning…

Nothing that he said sounded natural. And once more, he missed when he could talk to them freely.

"Oh, daddy is still traveling through the mountains, but he visits us a lot more lately!" Purin touched her lips in a thoughtful way as her other arm was still in the air, hugging a brother only she could see. Her head was still tilted to the side. "I wonder why… His training is very, very important, na no da! Maybe he is spending days in town… But then why wouldn't he stay here with Purin and her siblings?"

Not wanting her to become distressed as Ichigo had, Ryou hurried to stop that line of broken thoughts while he tried to seek another subject.

"He cares for you…" Without truly thinking, he just ended up saying. "Keiichiro sent you a hug, too…" His mouth was dry. He could barely stand the words, he wanted to hug her and yet Ryou knew he couldn't do even that. Purin's reactions could be too unstable.

"Oh, when vacation is over, I'll be back to the Café, don't be silly!" Her voice produced a high-pitched and repetitive sound, a cadence of giggles. "I think I can juggle more plates now! And I've been teaching Honcha and Heicha too!"

Her focus was always on her siblings. But hearing her speaking of them made his throat close. He actually had no idea of how it was when Purin's family came to visit her and didn't think he would like to know… Her siblings were younger, perhaps too younger to understand their big sister who had taken care of them since the death of their mother was sick…

"Ryooou-saan" She whined with those eyes that almost didn't blink anymore still fixated on him, shining and shining. "You're too quiiieeet!" She moved in the chair before making a gesture with her arms that he didn't even know what meant. "Is Lucha bothering you?"

"No, no!" He said quickly, with no idea of what her eyes were seeing. "I just remembered… The first time you came to the café…" He tried to keep the question-like intonation out of his voice. That was a pure lie, but it was the first thing that came to his mind.

Purin nodded vehemently, repeating that mocking sound of giggle.

"Heicha has been saying that she would like to work there too with me when she gets older! Because it is so fun! And even if it isn't out headquarters anymore, it is still ours, right!"

That was something he comprehended. When the war against the aliens was over, he had decided to close the café since there was no reason to keep it open anymore. Or so he had thought… The place had become more than a sort of hidden base, time had impregnated the walls with memories. Like a tree house club of children, a room for the occupant, it was more than a mere localization or a workplace: It was _theirs_ and, for this, special.

So, in the end the café had remained open.

Today, Ryou was unable of approaching the building and yet, he couldn't bring himself to sell it or demolish it either.

"Yeah… It's ours, yes" Only that there was no "us" anymore.

"I miss the café! I could visit you guys someday! Since you come to see us and I just go out with the girls! You should come with us someday!" The glint in her eyes remained even if her lower lip started to shiver and her words became slower in the end… Ryou's body tensed…

But it was just that.

"We should aaaall go out!" Her lips stretched to show the molars when she sing-sang "You, me, Keiichiro, the girls, Chancha, Hanacha, Lucha, Honcha and Heicha!"

Her voice was higher now and still, Purin spoke with the same tone one would use to speak of their family.

"Of… Of course" Had she seen them as her family? There was no denial she had had a lot to deal with, even before the war and with her father away, that teacher had been her main source of adult support…

"It would be so fun, all of us together!" Purin continued, kneeling and wrapping her arms in the air and nuzzling it. "Right, Chancha? Yes, I know! We need to do it!" She turned to Ryou, not releasing her brother. "Oh, oh, I know! We should go to the park!"

"One day… We'll go one day" His legs moved without his command and he stood, lungs hard and forgetting of how to work. All his insides shivered. It was a lie, it was all a lie and he knew it.

Purin laughed once more. Or screamed. What difference there was, really?

"Great! See, Heicha?" She turned, looking straight at a point of the wall. "I told you! We'll be together foreveeer!"

"Yeah… Always…" How he wished this could be true. There had been a time when they all had really thought this could happen, that the bond they had (whatever its nature) would last forever…

What bond there was now?

"I… I have to go, Purin… I…" He had such little time with them. However, he tried to think about an excuse, in the case of Purin sensing there was something wrong.

"Oh, yes! Purin knows! Ryou doesn't need to worry, no need! Purin hopes he will visit her more, na no da! Na no da!" She stood and jumped to him in a sort of hug, thought the claws on his back had no affection and her arms were too stiff, making it hard to hold back a shiver.

She giggled once more, the sound piercing his ear…

Then, she let go.

Standing in front of him, Purin bowed in a perfect angle. Her body looked like the spine had broken and still, she kept her face turned to him, her face still tore up in a smile.

Her eyes remained glinting.

"Let's go out together soooon, right? We will be always together, forever!"

His mouth was dry.

"We will… Of course…" What else could he tell her? The truth was elusive and had no place in here, just like reality.

It was all false here.

She saw lies.

He spoke lies.

It would have been almost comical if it didn't make his organs changing places from where they were supposed to be.

* * *

**Ana: Just one more chapter and the epilogue and this fic will be over. I really wanted to write something with this kinda of post-war scenario. It may not be perfect, but hey it was fun!**


	6. Chains of Madness

_"The wounds that never heal can only be mourned alone" –_ James Frey.

To know there only remained Zakuro to be visited was a fact that Ryou wouldn't ever be able to tell if it was cause for sadness or some sort of relief, as bad as it sounded. He had seen all of the girls before and with worse results (today's collapse of Ichigo and the occasion when Lettuce had hit his head with her tail didn't even come near the top of the list), however today he felt more and more as if his skin was being tore apart, leaving flesh and nerves exposed to wires that played on them. And even when he thought the sensation couldn't get any worse, another layer of skin that he never had knew he had was taken and fell leaving a trail in the hallways, accumulating in the rooms…

What remained were the still pulsating veins and nerves shivering in the cold.

Perhaps this was enforced due to the knowledge that, as much as he didn't want to, this was probably the last time he would ever see them again? He didn't know. Suddenly, there was more coldness to be felt but Ryou fought to not give signals of this, be a shiver or rubbing his arms.

A buzzing in his ears made him realize Katsura was saying something.

Again.

Could it be that the cretin was unable to just shut up? As a glutton raved that kept pecking even after the meat was long gone from bones, the doctor stroke him as incapable of simply accepting the silence.

"You didn't answer my questions…"

As if he even remembered them.

"It makes no difference. You're decided to place blame on someone, namely me, so whatever I have to say means nothing" He added before the idiot could say something more. "I'm not saying I didn't have anything to do with this, that I wasn't involved, before you accuse me of denying responsibility or whatever you're thinking now."

He was just so tired…

"I'm not placing blame or accusing. Until now, I limited myself to express the facts" The man replied with a voice that carried no intonation of any specie and for a moment, Ryou wondered if he was tired too.

This, also, had no importance.

"You made conjectures"

"If so, they're based on the _facts."_ A sigh. "Since you haven't answered my questions" Ryou mentally replied he had no obligation of doing so, since this wasn't an interrogation. "So, tell me if you really believe you were thinking about humanity's survival when you made your choices?"

This caused an instance when the blonde thought he had misheard the other.

"Everything that I did was for it" Seeing he could keep his tone controlled despite how Katsura's words once again played with the chords of his being, Ryou carried on. "And I told you already, I did worry and cared for them. I do, until today…"

I have my doubts. I said it already, all of them are between ten and fifteen years old, who would ever send people of such young age to a war out of sudden and without any support? Deep inside, I believe you didn't give continuity to the research due to humanity or even because of your parents… You did it for yourself and your desire for vengeance."

This was something Ryou hadn't heard before and it cut the weight of his muscles with surprise, which came faster than the usual irritation when the doctor spoke as if he knew him. Only the idea of what Katsura had said now…

"You've said that I surprise you with my arrogance" He commented with all despise he could force into the words. "Now you're the one surprising me with yours"

The way the man replied held nothing but professionalism.

"I base myself on facts. I know you could isolate the necessary genes at a young age, I know you're intelligent. Your choices are _deliberate and thought over and over"_ There was no need to go back to the obvious point of what he meant by this. "By what I see, you thought only you could and was entitled to deal with the whole project"

The feeling of sting on his tongue made Ryou realizes he had been biting it, probably to hold back a rude answer that could make this escalate to a more intense argument if their nerves weren't so wrecked. At each step the hallway grew colder as they went to the last room, the way feeling longer in a sort of mockery.

"To have intelligence doesn't make you worth of assuming the leadership or making such decisions, especially regarding someone else's life. It doesn't make you superior and certainly doesn't mean you know more than people who have lived longer…" He sighed as if wanting to say something else.

"I never said I thought of myself as such!" Was the hissed reply. Before, whatever that man said burned his nerves. By now, with weariness biting every possible sense and making his nerves dormant, Ryou just tried to tell himself they were approaching Zakuro's room. The idea caused mixed feelings, just like the previous rooms. "And I don't see why you say that I would do this for me. It was a fucking war"

"Simple. You never told anyone not even because you wanted to be responsible for the whole "saving humanity" objective. No. You wanted to be sure you were in control of everything and that you would satisfy your wish for revenge."

"I wasn't interested in this!" Ryou felt a forced strength coming back as he spoke, though this only made him feel sick. Dr. Katsura sighed again as he took his usual spot at the side of the ice-white door, not making a movement to pick up the card and just staring at the blue eyes of Ryou. "Revenge wouldn't bring my parents back, would it? I just didn't want others to lose their families and lives! What I did _was_ to keep humanity safe!"

"That's what you tell yourself because it was due to your wish for control and revenge!" The other's voice rose a little, sounding hoarsely before it went back to normal. And the coldness of before came from him, in waves. "Otherwise, you would have thought better about what you were doing."

Ryou was about to reply. Dr. Katsura went on and his voice closed around Ryou's throat to stop him.

"You never cared for them, not really. You were too focused in win, in strike back for what happened to you when you were a child, too determined to see the aliens as demons that had to be won against, no mattering the costs. Do you think we don't know what happened during Christmas? One of the aliens spoke of how _we_ were the aliens, the bad guys, in their eyes and the mews themselves spoke at times of trying to find peaceful ways to solve the situation. You never gave any importance to the idea." He shook his head, never once taking his eyes off the other.

"They were trying to kill everyone!"

"I never said they were misunderstood little angels. But who wouldn't rather find peaceful ways to end a war, rather than keep fighting? They looked up to you since you were in charge of the whole project, didn't they?" His eyes were daggers and his voice now was the essence of poison. "So don't come to me with this that you wanted to save humanity, this was a side thing. You were focused in yourself."

"Open this door"

Dr. Katsura remained still for a moment, making Ryou think he wouldn't comply until the doctor picked the white card in his pocket. Yet, he didn't open the door right away.

"It doesn't matter how much I speak, you're far too blinded in your belief that everything that you did was right to see the truth. I'll at least try telling you what the truth is… You're not a doctor or a great researcher. You may have brains, Ryou, but you just continued what your father started and never took real responsibility for what you were doing or thought about it…" The man held the card in his hand, his eyes still on Ryou before he turned. "Testing it on yourself meant nothing. It wasn't for them. The lack of tests, training, of psychological support… You think wars are just games?"

With an angry movement, he used the card in the metal lock. The light blinked and there was a small beep of acceptance.

**XxX**

The room of now was the biggest of all.

There was a clear reason for this. More than half of it was divided by bars of a shining metal. The space beyond them would be the same size of the other rooms, more or less.

The window at the left wall was closed and the lights in the ceiling dead as well, so the place was casted to the soft shadows, except the extreme end of the room where darkness quickly became absolute. If Ryou hadn't been here before, he wouldn't be able to guess the exact size of the place.

It wasn't the first time he found the room in such state either, so there was no surprise. He couldn't say he very much liked it, though.

Spying through the bars from where he stood, he couldn't see signal of life and yet there was a self-conscious sensation that denounced that there was something there with him. Ryou approached the bars until he could, ignoring how his nerves hardened at each step. Threads of light squeezed through the window weakly, creating lines in the floor and reflecting the metal when they touched it.

"Zakuro?" He whispered, his voice no more than air forming a word as he searched for a figure in the shadows, as useless as it was with the darkness.

There was nothing.

Not a sound, not a movement to be noticed.

Somehow, however, Ryou knew she was awake.

"Zakuro…" He tried again, realizing his throat was dry and swallowed. A part of him didn't want her to come near the bars, while other hoped she would. "Please…"

More seconds of nothing.

Then, slowly, darkness started to give birth to a figure that slithered closer to the light.

The movements were the ones one would associate to those of a summer afternoon and yet, Ryou saw only winter.

The figure stopped in the exact point where the gray shades turned into black nothing.

Zakuro watched Ryou in absolute silence. Where she was, part of her face remained in the darkness which emphasized the apparent stone-like shine of her eyes. They still held (or seemed to) the blue that photographs tended to praise, however the white had been taken by the blue, the iris held details that no human eye ever had… Eyes of an animal in a face that still had a human shape.

"I'm surprised" The voice came from her with purposeful softness. Like his, it was no more than a whisper. "I would have thought the lawyers had already taken care of the case"

Ryou didn't look away, no matter how much he wished to and didn't hide his sigh either. But it hurt to look at her, as his senses picked up details that denounced a nature that wasn't human or animal.

"I know you don't want to see me…"

She threw her head behind with a howl of a laugh, something cold and terrible that pierced his eardrums with the touch of needles. When straightening her head, some strands of hair slithered to the front of her shoulders. They were longer than the last time he had seen her and turned the same shade of her ears and her tail.

"This" She touched her chin with a finger in a gesture of someone sharing a secret. "It's a way of putting it" Her fingers weren't as twisted as Ichigo's, however the joints had hardened and the claws were black. They were paws, badly disguised as hands and the purpose of the claws was just one: To tear flesh, as if it wasn't good for anything else _but_ to be tore apart.

"Maybe this is the last time…" He almost asked if this would make her happy, but he didn't say anything. There was no use in asking this and there had been a long time since Zakuro had given signs of even remembering what happiness was. There was no reply from the creature either, though her expressions had grown harder to decipher with time, reduced to either subtle signals or nothing. Ryou thought she could be wondering why he was here at all.

Or maybe it was the effect of everything up until now.

"I just wanted to see you all once again…" It wasn't an explanation or a justification, it was closer to an attempt to make some sort of conversation. And it seemed Zakuro wouldn't answer this either.

"And was there any difference?" She seemed genuinely curious, even if she knew the answer. "Some change since last time?"

"It wasn't for _it._ You know it" It was true, as much as it was true that talking to her as just as hard as trying to talk to Lettuce, though Zakuro's case was different. "I just wanted to see you all…"

"Oh, and did you?"

He understood what she meant. He hadn't. He hadn't truly _seen_ them… Not the _true_ girls he had known.

"Was it because of our old, good friendship?" Her lips, pale to the point they could barely be seen, came apart in what would have been a smile other time and that now was no more than an exhibition of teeth that had nothing to be classified as human even if they were in a human mouth.

Ryou noticed, not without a jump of his stomach, that there was blood. Either her gums had started to bleed again or she had just finished a meal…

It was necessary to feed her with fresh killed meat from time to time. Survival with a normal diet was possible, but there was something in her organism that needed more. And this also seemed to have some effect to calm the part of her that was a predator but due to her state as standing between one thing and another, it had its toll on the mind and the control that full beings had. Be it humans or animals.

One of her ears shivered in a nervous tick way. Her eyes never left Ryou. He didn't know what answer to give. It wasn't as if he could deny reality and he wasn't an idiot of trying it with her or trying saying they were still friends.

"I care about you all… You know this."

"I know a few things, but _this_ …" It wasn't that she didn't know. She just had no care for whether there was truth to this or not, even if Ryou thought she didn't believe it anymore. He kept looking in her eyes as if he could see through them the broken shards of her underneath the skin.

She wasn't here without a reason. He had merely caught her in a good day, regarding both mind and her inclination to speak with him.

When he was about to say something, she interrupted him.

"I _know_ , Ryou"

He didn't understand. She carried on, still sitting in that animal-like way and waving him off with her frozen paw. And now that he had seen the blood, it stood out and he couldn't stop looking at her fangs while she spoke.

"I still know enough. Of the past and the present. But worse…" Something flashed in her eyes and it was as if something moved underneath her skin when a sort of shiver ran through it. "Is that I still _know_ enough to understand what reality is and what happened with the _first friends_ I ever had in my life."

She spoke the truth. To be able to make a conscious conversation with her didn't mean she differed from the others. What had broken in her just didn't have the same layer that cut her off.

Like the others, whatever her mind had been before now was no more than shards floating in the darkness permeated by thin rivers of blood.

"You said this may be the last time we see each other. You're wrong. It's not "may", it _is."_

She retracted herself to the shadows without standing. For an instant, Ryou was able to see her eyes before those were also consumed and only the voice remained.

"If you ever appear here again, I'll find a way to cross those bars and rip your eyes out with the fangs you gave to me."


End file.
